Second time suggests that sector of industry is corrupt to the point of endangering everyone. If you have property near a filling station, petroleum pipeline, tank farm, transfer site, refinery, or anything else involved in processing petrochemicals, it is time to start agitating for some third party safety audits to make sure that your property's value isn't about to get blown to smithers.

I'm not saying that your stuff is directly at risk. But if we have another explosion, pipeline leak, or similar event anywhere within USA jurisdiction, your property values will get tarred by a very broad brush. Anyone at risk of this needs to get politicking for some kind of review that will assure potential buyers that they won't be shafted by their petrochemical neighbors.

BTW, there is absolutely no need to lay this kind of thing off to enemy action. Not when 8+ years of ineffective oversight coupled with corporate "long term" planning that fails to look beyond next quarter's profit and loss statement are more than adequate to account for these incidents. (I was about to say "accidents", but it appears that these are far from accidental. They look much more like the productive of short term greed multiplied by long term stupidity.)

Or it could be gross, deliberate negligence. As anyone who has read the report on BP's actions leading up to the previous rig accident, or has worked in the resources industry can attest, there's a corporate culture in offshore oil and gas of "it will never happen".

There were many opportunities for the gulf spill to be prevented, but proper process was circumvented on numerous occasions.

Funny, when I started reading it, which was well before I got my low four-digit id, it was a news aggregator. Of course, their sources tended to be more things like OS-related blogs back then, but it was still an aggregator. Here's the earliest record the Internet Archive has: Jan 13, 1998 [archive.org]. Everything there is a link to a news story or press release elsewhere.

I think the troll mod you got may have been a bit harsh, but the only alternative I see is that you're either severely confused or viewing the past

Yeah. We're drifting sadly off-topic here, but a complaint that this hardly seems like "News for Nerds" might have been more understandable, and may have been his actual issue, but the claim that Slashdot "has become" a news aggregator is just silly. It was never anything but.

In a feeble attempt to bring this back on-topic: I would rather have seen slashdot link to some technical analysis of what happened and why. Details are probably lacking as of yet, but I'd find that a lot more interesting, and much m

That's assuming all things being equal, which likely they aren't. If the pipe hadn't been broken in the very specific way it was with the BP rig, then earlier attempts would have been successful. If a cap is even needed in this case, it might require some special steps which haven't been required on the BP rig due to specific circumstances.

But between two oil rig explosions and the Chilean mine collapse, perhaps we can get closer to realizing that trying to energy out of the ground isn't exactly the best

The Chilean mine is for gold and copper. You might argue that it's even less important than "energy", or that it's more important, or that it provides some sort of "economic energy" or psychological energy, or whatever. But good luck getting gold and copper anywhere else (other than recycling).

Given that the rig is on the continental shelf, the well can't be in more than 800-1000ft of water, and is likely in closer to 200-400ft. I don't have hard number on this specific rig, but given the relative position the news agencies are reporting, and depth measurments of that area (see Google Earth), it can't possibly be in 2500ft.

There's not going to be a leak this time. It's a stationary "midway-house delivery" platform, not a drilling platform.

Not downplaying the significance of this (what was it the energy industry said about the BP explosion being a "once-in-a-lifetime" event and so Obama's drilling ban was unwarranted?), but we don't need to worry about another spill.

Not downplaying the significance of this (what was it the energy industry said about the BP explosion being a "once-in-a-lifetime" event and so Obama's drilling ban was unwarranted?), but we don't need to worry about another spill.

Seriously, when was the last drill rig explosion, collapse and sinking prior to BP?

Small gas explosions may happen from time to time, but platform threatening events are rare.

After a BP event, EVERYBODY picks up their game and starts checking their procedures and tightening up their safety systems. Inspectors start paying attention.

For this event to happen in the wake of that fact is disturbing. Maybe its time to break out the tinfoil hats.

Sorry, but the Australian spill didn't make them pick up their game and neither will the BP spill. Until they are forced to change costing them large amounts of money you can't possibly think they would change on their own? The reality is that they really aren't concerned about spills because there is no political will anywhere to really change the oil industry. Shell spills the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill every year in Nigeria and most people have no idea about it.

That idea that they learned is a joke. here is a quote from a news site comparing the BP blow out to an earlier one.

79 Mexico oil spillAttempted Fixes

# They attempted to put a cone over the top, calling it operation Sombrero (as oppose to Top-Hat)

# They attempted to plug up the leak by pumping rocks, mud and seawater into it

Pemex pumped cement and salt water into Ixtoc for months before finally bringing the runaway well under control and sealing it with cement plugs.

Pemex's scramble to come up with other solutions while the relief wells were being drilled will sound familiar to those who have followed BP's efforts to stop the oil gushing out of its ruptured well.

Divers tried to manually operate the blowout preventer but this effort was unsuccessful and over the next several months Pemex tried a variety of solutions, including a plan to force metal spheres into the well to cut the flow of oil and lowering a steel structure over the spill to capture the crude.

BP is trying similar schemes but the huge water depth it is operating at is vastly complicating its efforts.

Does any of that sound like BP learned anything from an almost exact issue as theirs?

In both cases natural gas flowed unnoticed into the well being drilled, causing an explosion. In both cases a critical piece of fail-safe equipment -- the blowout preventer -- failed. And in both cases the operators struggled to quickly staunch the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

NPR interviewed some oil workers at various smaller companies a little while back. They basically said that they were angry with BP, because while the record in the US since the Exxon Valdez has not been perfect, it has substantially improved. BP's experience -- accident or dangerous indifference -- has tarnished the entire industry. Exxon employees especially were furious because that company basically overhauled its entire safety mindset in the years after the Exxon Valdez, and most of what gets brought up about Exxon is a disaster from 20+ years ago, like nothing has changed since.

I just realized that I mixed some of my thoughts there. NPR interviewed workers from smaller oil companies; the interviews with employees of Exxon, which is in no way a small company, were conducted another time, though I don't recall if it was by NPR.

JUST MAYBE, we should look into this stuff.. I know, it happens off of the land so "civilians" are safe, but I am about 99% sure when big metal buildings *EXPLODE*, something is wrong. Once in a year? Extremely bad. Twice in a year? Something is broken.

Also wikileaks must be closed, Assange needs to go to prison, in Iraq WMDs were found and now the country is free and democratic, all Taliban and Al Qaeda are destroyed, Iran can be taken by US and UN forces in days without any major problems, SS is not spent, taxes need to continue be paid to the gov't, who is clearly on the right path of doing everything correctly, the jobless economy recovery is getting better, even though the trade is not balanced, the gov't can

There are still civilians working on those platforms. This time, fortunately, none of them died and only one got injured, but we should think about the people living on these big exploding metal buildings.

Maybe, just maybe, safety standards for places like mines and oil rigs go down when the people appointed to head the inspection agencies for mines and oil rigs were former executives for mine and oil companies. And even if a new guy gets in charge, it can take a long time before their changes take any effect.

The parent knows what he is talking about. I am a Controls Engineer and I work at a facility that has all kinds of alarms and interlocks that are in place to keep things safe. There are very strict procedures (Management of Chance, Process Safety Management, etc.) that are meant to review and ensure that all of the systems in place are still in place and working properly.

Anytime, EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME, anyone asks me or one of the other Controls Engineers to make a change to these systems or interlocks, there is a MOC process where they have to submit what they want to change to their boss, someone in safety, head of engineering at a minimum. Each person has to take the time to look at what is being changed and then ask questions/raise concerns. When everyone is satisfied, then they approve it and eventually they come to me with an approved change and then and ONLY THEN will I make a change.

All of these things keep the operations working in proper order and are checked at least once a year to make sure they are in place per the design specifications, and those specs include the MOC changes, which is part of the whole process.

These are the interlocks that are in place that keep people in the place alive. These types of procedures are mandated things and if we didn't follow them, we would be fined out of existence or shut down entirely for not having a procedure and following it.

The break down in these cases are as follows:

1) Inspectors not checking and keeping the pressure on. Although, inspectors are stretched thin and can only check so many things, so ultimately, if people are cutting corners, most of the time inspectors will not catch them.2) Operations taking short cuts to be able to meet demand that are figuring out ways to bypass something they shouldn't bypass to run anyway and they they are no longer protected.3) People not following the procedures listed above and then things break and don't get repaired, changes made that are not documented, safety critical interlocks being modified so they no longer offer the protection that should.

If the procedures are followed properly and things documented, then the properly designed safety systems stay in place and these kinds of things can't happen. Yes there are problems with excess alarms in place and alarms getting ignored, but nuisance alarms are not the things that really matter for safety. What really matters are the interlocks where systems realize there is an issue and shut themselves down to protect the equipment and personnel. Alarms inform operators that something is not in the right range and they should look at it before it affects production. Interlocks (which have alarms with them as well) are the things that are the final protection level and the system reacts on it's own, equipment goes to fail safe mode and you are not running anymore.

I have heard in news sources of the BP spill and many other industrial accidents (check www.csb.org if interested in find out about chemical plant issues that have been investigated) and in most cases where there are issues with systems that were designed properly to begin with, like what omglolbah was stating, that the system is safe and these kind of things can't happen. It is when proper procedures are not followed and improper changes are made that we get BP and accidents happening.

So proper enforcement and inspections will only do some much, but have to be in place to make sure everyone is doing their do dilagence to stop these kinds of things from happening.

There's a difference between malfunctioning alarms and very sensitive alarms. If there's a tiny little problem that could turn into something (even remotely) potentially catastrophic, it needs to be fixed. If people ignore it, that's because of a bad safety policy or being dangerously understaffed. Both of these are easily fixed if capable people are in charge, and both of these are inexcusable in this kind of environment.

My guess is that the alarms going off if there is even a small leak is because those leaks need to be fixed so that they don't become big leaks. There's a difference between common alarms for small-but-important problems and alarms going off to remind you that you haven't brushed your teeth.

Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...

...And you don't think that could be part of the problem? Whenever alarms sound for tiny little problems, people grow deaf to them.

Only if those tiny little alarms happen quite a lot, and when no action is taken as a result. If you get a tiny little alarm once a week which is responded to promptly, professionally, and in such a manner that the alarm is silenced because the problem was properly fixed according to the strict procedures... I can't see how that would be an issue.

Taking the battery out of the smoke alarm is an option right after you burn the food, but leaving it out for a month isn't. If the alarm is that much of an annoyance, that means the smoke alarm is too old, and you should replace the smoke alarm.

Besides, this is not at all like a smoke alarm where the alarm might just be a nuisance (burnt popcorn, too many candles, steam from the bathroom, overcooked biscuits, etc.) and where the cause is understood (poor placement, stove fire, etc.). When alarms on an oil rig go off, you know you have a problem. The only questions you should ask are "How big?" and "What do I need to replace?".

There are no false positives when you're talking about critical safety systems on something that could cause such widespread damage in the event of a failure. Any problem is something that needs to be dealt with; if it's a bad sensor causing a false positive, the sensor needs to be replaced.

Indeed, one of the causes of the last disaster was that alarms had been going off for weeks and instead of fixing the underlying problem, they turned off the alarms. The alarms were not the problem. The alarms were indications that something was wrong. The problem was that A. things were not working, and B. people ignored the problems rather than taking corrective measures.

If we were talking about safety systems that, due to their complexity, cannot be made reliable---if constant false positives were inevitable (e.g. car alarms)---then yes, I would agree that the alarms were the problem. That said, I have no reason to believe that this is the case, and more to the point, if that is the case, then proper oil rig safety is impossible, which means that we should not be drilling off the coast, period.

They'll keep reporting each and every one, now that the Obama administration is on a mission to push through new legislation promoting "alternate energy". After a few of them, they should have the public alarmed enough to agreeably pass things taxing them for their carbon footprint and much more....

No, it's not. The only way to get oil to explode is to vaporize it, mix it with air in the exact right concentration, and then set it on fire - and forget the movies, a cigarette is not going to do it; your car needs a spark of 20,000+ volts for reliable inginiton, and it's using a near-optimal concentration of fuel vapor, and that's easily-burning gasoline vapor, not crude oil.

True, but irrelevant. Rig explosions are almost always the result of natural gas [energyindustryphotos.com] that was under under tremendous pressure underground. It doesn't take much to touch off a gas leak.

It's called Methane. A lot of rigs burn off the Methane that comes with many oil deposits. But sometimes, Methane accumulates for whatever reason, isn't burned off in a controlled fashion, and explodes instead. And then ignites the oil. Methane/oil compositions are a bitch.

Wasn't the moratorium on deep water drilling? I haven't been able to find this info, but I'm not sure this was a deepwater rig. It was 80 miles offshore, but the Gulf doesn't get "deep" until a long ways out.

Anyways, fires happen all the time on oil rigs, it's nothing new, or even exceptional: "The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010." [wikipedia.org]

Okay, so the oil industry says that this sort of event is "a million to one" to happen, and we've had two within a few months. By their estimates, we've already reached a scenario less likely than Evangelion's Zero-Nine probability... or maybe, just maybe, these oil rigs are a lot less safe than they'd have us believe?

so you don't fund chavez in venezuela, salafists and wahhabi fundamentalism via saudi arabia, the destruction of our environment, lowered air quality, etc

you are part of the problem, every time you pull into a gas station. policy change on a national level is only half the solution. the other part of the solution is a personal decision all of us have to make to do what is right

don't let your next car be fueled by gasoline, for the sake of national security, and your environment. since militant muslim fundamentalism and petrodollar socialism is something that bothers the right, and environmental destruction and poor air quality something that bothers the left, then surely, this is something that both the left, and the right, can agree on, for once

imagine that: a monumental personal decision that both bush haters and obama haters can agree on

my personal preference is that we use up foreign oil while it's still relatively cheap. when it hits $500 barrel, then maybe we should tap into offshore wells and sell some back to OPEC for 20x what we paid for most of theirs.

in the mean time we should probably focus on perfecting blow-out preventers.

I entirely agree. US politicians yelling about how we need to drill more to make ourselves more energy independent are selling false goods. Even if we tripled the amount of oil that we were producing domestically, it would still be a small fraction of the oil that the country uses, and would at best reduce prices by a few pennies per gallon. It would earn big piles of money for a relatively small number of people in the oil industry, and the rest of us wouldn't notice anything different.

We should consider the rest of that oil as a strategic reserve, in case one day we really need it, or somebody else really needs it and is willing to pay out the nose for it.

No statement about the environment should begin with any word other than "I", as in "I own a car but only drive once a week or so", "I bought a smaller house downtown so I can walk to work and do almost all my shopping on foot--I stay fit as an added bonus!" and "My smaller house costs a lot less to heat. Basically I save a lot of money by living a more sustainable, urban lifestyle, which gives me more time for my kids."

in order for a coal plant to generate the same amount of power in kW as an engine, it produces *less* CO2 and pollutants. Even if you're at the worst case scenario for grid power, you're still doing better than an internal combustion engine with gasoline.

I don't think that's necessarily going to soothe people.
They've seen the repercussions at their worst, or very near it, and now they're seeing what looks like evidence of a high failure rate. Outrage can be expected, and to some extent it's understandable.
It's anecdotal evidence, and screams of observation bias, but the existence of those biases does not mean that people are wrong. Scrutinizing the source of all that outrage can't possibly hurt. A properly functioning government would ensure that's done

Except, with recent history as a precedent and still fresh in peoples' minds, most people would immediately assume the worst, ie another spill with millions flowing out a day. Prudence dictates that it should be mentioned that there is no known leak at this time. Otherwise it IS sensationalism (although apparently someone above doesn't seem to like it being pointed out)

Clean coal? I hate to tell you this... No, actually, I love to tell you this. Clean coal is a lie.

You would get more energy out of coal if you were to filter the radioactive particles from it and use that in a nuclear reactor than if you had burned the coal normally.

All that ash and coke, full of mercury, heavy metals and other toxic stuff has to go somewhere, It either goes in the air for us all to breath or it gets stored and eventually makes its way into our soil and water supply.

CO2 sequestration can not work, you are talking about pumping billions of tons of gas underground into pockets in the rock. This has been shown to cause minor earthquakes, those earthquakes will eventually result in a blowout event, a blowout event will kill everyone in the area as the CO2 suffocates everyone, similar events happen all the time in Africa with natural CO2 sources.

Nuclear? sure, but we need to reprocess waste instead of storing it, preferably inside the reactor.Solar? sure.Wind? Ok, but it is unreliable so you can't rely on it for than a relatively small amount of the grid power.Clean Coal? make me laugh.

I don't know about your keyboard, but mine has the main body of the keyboard painstakingly shaped from the horn of a rhinoceros.The keys carved from ivory obtained by hunting elephants for their tusks.The ink to label the tops of the keys comes from finely dicing baby octopuses then running them through a centrifuge.The springiness of the keys is particularly effective, to get the proper resistance for each key the sinews of baby seals is used.

It's really not that much of a spin. The GP's point is completely correct. If self-described environmentalists (actually just anti-nuclear activists) hadn't scared the American public away from a nuclear-based energy policy with scientifically bankrupt scare tactics, the United States would rely far, far less on fossil fuels today (probably almost exclusively for cars by now) and the chances of oil rigs exploding would be lessened by the fact that there would be far less oil rigs in the first place.

Not only that, but extracting oil from deep-water drill sites would probably not yet (if ever) be cost-effective for the prices wrought by demand and so the major Gulf spill of 2010 quite possibly would never have happened either.

So while they're not directly to blame, it's not a huge stretch to draw a line between the lies and ignorant actions of past anti-nuclear activists and the environmental disasters happening all the time in our fossil fuel draining little world.